Lynne Tillman - Cast in Doubt

Then Dr. Brodsky said: Delimitation is always difficult.

A Clockwork Orange

Burgess is certainly in Bliss’ library. Bliss knows him. Orange is a cult book. Burgess was most likely influenced by Finnegans Wake ; I thought it remarkable that his book found such success with the young. But didn’t Helen once tell me something about this issue of delimitation? I pour myself another drink. I think someone demanded of her that she delimit. Who was it? Her father? She rarely if ever mentioned him. I remember now. Her college guidance counselor did, when Helen was called to her office for a consultation. It must have been just afterward that Helen left school. The woman insisted to her: Delimit, you must delimit! But when did Helen tell me this story?

W wants to be me and I won’t let her. She hates me sometimes. I hate her. I love her. She loves me. The way I don’t know her I always won’t know her and she knows me in the way I think she knows me, to really know—

I abhor split infinitives. This passage must refer to her complicated relationship either with her sister or with a friend. A rather different kind of writing, I think. Were she beside me now I would explain to Smitty that one’s family — and one’s friends — plagues one throughout life. Near to this entry is a picture of a rock or punk band called the Ramones; Gwen mentioned them in a letter. They are a motley crew of unhappy-looking boys, with long hair and small dark glasses. Surly types. On the opposite page is a picture of a dog. I suppose the dog is hers. Is she cunningly commenting upon the Ramones?

J makes me sick, the liar, he’s a total fuck up—

This cryptic assessment of John is accompanied by a single squiggly line and then a list of words: “punk junk gag hag lag jag did dit dot dope hope mope hip yip yippies.” And so on. I wonder if this might be labeled graphorrhea — a mental illness marked by the writing of a long succession of meaningless words.

I’m at a picnic and she won’t speak to me and I try to be nice but she’s in a disgusting mood and I can’t really do it whatever it is I’m supposed to do and my parents ignore me. My friends too. What did I do wrong this time? Later I phone Iggy Stooge but he’s busy.

HELL WHERE DOES HERPES COME FROM ANYWAY?

In the water there’s a rock it’s huge and it has the profile of a man but not the same man as before and nobody else sees it. Then everyone goes for lunch and there are different rooms and bigger and smaller ones and everyone knows everyone else but I’m an outsider. I say to someone I’m going to make movies but they don’t believe me, and the place is a movie set and then Crete, and me, I’m just trying to find a place to live and no money and some awful guy I slept with is on the set too but I’m standing next to the director and feel okay with him, very close to him. The Who is playing loud and some woman is singing, not Daltry or Townshend, and I don’t even like them anymore, and she’s screaming something about her mother who’s famous.

The first may be a dream or a real event. Does she have herpes? I had gonorrhea once but never syphilis. I have been lucky. Surely the second paragraph is a dream. The boulder may be the one in the harbor which does jut out, but does not, to me, look like a man in profile. I am unfamiliar with the Who; the name is amusing. Is Helen’s mother famous? I think not. Unless she is using her maiden name. Practically speaking — and this problem has more than once vexed Stan Green — it is much harder to trace women if they assume their husbands’ names. Divorce is a further complication.

Next, there is a news item and a picture of another group — whom I have heard of — The Jackson Five. Gwen interviewed them before they made a trip to Ghana with other black American musicians. I believe it was Ghana.

You want evidence I want ecstasy.

Beneath this is a photograph of five men in white laboratory coats. One holds a device of some type, the others are studying it intently.

I did poison him. I can tell cause he’s looking at me now. Phoned N in the city and told him and he said he never knew I was like this and I explained that certain things are for me alone and I know they’re probably just in my mind which isn’t mine in a way and I don’t act on everything anyway. Always feel like a hypocrite. S is really funny, really out there. He read to me and told me these weird stories about his family, crazy, I don’t believe everything but it doesn’t matter — I thought mine were nuts but his are the worst, it’s amazing the guy is still alive, and he also told me a fable — he’s into Aesop — about the jackdaw and the eagle. The jackdaw wants to be an eagle and tries to do what the eagle does but can’t. The jackdaw gets his claws stuck in a sheep’s fur and he can’t fly and then a shepherd captures him and cuts his wings off. S says it’s about how you realize who you are only after you aren’t that thing anymore. He crashed on my floor.

Might I be the person whom she imagines she has poisoned, but why? That cannot be the case. And surely I was right about her and Stephen having become friends and his staying, or crashing, with her. Who is “N”? I once studied cryptography, hoping to serve as a cryptographer in the war. I wanted to work in Intelligence and decode messages, but I was not accepted. I did very much want to go, though war and violence terrify me. Still I would not lie about my sexual proclivity. That would have been insulting, and why go off to war, perhaps to die, to fight for what one holds dear and true when one’s person is unacceptable? That I could not and would not do.

Isn’t that great

Isn’t great great

that isn’t great

what’s great

great isn’t what it used to be

great isn’t so great

what’s great?

Tell the story. She told the story. It put a gun to her head. Can you tell the story is being told? No, she put the gun to its head and it blew her brains out. And can you tell the story is the end. The END. To Be Continued

This is followed by a list:

Do laundry

buy glue

meet S

phone W

toilet paper

tampax

That was all. There are a few blank pages, but I had come to her last entry. I turned the book over. I had read the diary through once and desired to read it again, even more slowly, now that I knew what was there and knew what to expect. Rereading allows one the opportunity to free oneself from one’s initial anxieties and fears. I wanted to pore over and study each page as if each were a palimpsest; I was seeking something beneath Helen’s words and the hastily thrown together captions and pictures.

Helen’s artlessness can be deceptive. Her crudeness and vulnerability make an impression. She is often harsh; I knew her to be blunt. I was unaware of the fact that she hoped to be a filmmaker. Perhaps she once mentioned it. I am now assured that her sister did not kill herself; although I cannot be positive. But why would John have indicated that she probably did? Perhaps, like John, Helen’s sister tried and failed. Still, I do not know.

I look about the room furtively, even despondently. I experience no immediate relief. I thought I would. Curiously, my guilt about having stolen Helen’s diary returns. But I push worry aside to consider the meaning inherent in it, what is essential in it and to her. There is such a mixture here; she moves toward and then away from clarity. She is angrier than I supposed her to be. Her eclectic sources — many of which are cunning, others, merely silly — are launched and land as if all were the same; all are set and settled on the same plane. It is interesting, I think, as well as enervating and confusing. Obviously Helen is confused; she is a confused young person, young woman. She exhausts my resources. I feel frustrated. Helen seems to make few or no discriminations between things. To what end does she apply herself and her thoughts? I ask myself.